


When You Wake Up

by Nessotherly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Battle of Winterfell, Bran Stark Does Timey Wimey Stuff, Canon - Book, Canon - TV Show, Cliches Galore, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Future, Journalist!Brienne Tarth, Modern Westeros, Orthodontistry, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, Time Travel, UST, don't even ask
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 01:35:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19163128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nessotherly/pseuds/Nessotherly
Summary: Bran sends Jaime and Brienne forward in time to modern day Westeros so as to figure out how to defeat the Night King. The thing is, they both have no recollection of the past, but destiny makes sure their paths cross over and over again.





	1. Prologue

There was no escape, no solution left to the incoming death and cold, nothing but despair and winds so violent Brienne knew her skin was freezing solid by the minute. And still — still, she held her ground, planted her feet as firmly as she possibly could on the slippery snow, and she felt more than she saw Jaime mimicking her stance on her left. The wind carried the screams and echoes of the battle from the sidelines. Those were soldiers Brienne had been forced to sacrifice, but she couldn’t cry. Her tears would freeze in her eyes and she wouldn’t see it coming for her, for them, for _him_.

For the first time in the short amount of time she’d known the boy, Brandon Stark’s voice rouse with emotion.

“ _Look at me!”_ he roared with fear and urgency.

And so they did; Jaime and Brienne turned to take a look at the three-eyed raven, prepared to see an Other already slicing his throat open. But they were alone, desperately alone still, and Bran’s eyes had turned white. Still, she could feel his gaze burning through her mind, and she almost forgot how to breathe.

Bran reached out for them and grabbed their arms, his voice rising against the wind, deeper than any thing they’d ever known.

“ _Find me when you wake up._ ”

And sleep suddenly came for them.


	2. Pink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter has not been beta'd yet and it must be filled with mistakes that have escaped my poor french eyes. English is not my mother tongue and the phrasing might be awkward at times (what do you mean all the time? HA)
> 
> So yes, I don't even know what this chapter is. Enjoy!

Jaime woke up with a start, utterly frozen.

There was a soft, regular clicking by his bedside that only emphasised the frantic beating of his heart as he recovered from— from whatever it was that had produced such terror. The sheets were warm and occupied. He wasn’t alone; the weight of the other body was almost unwelcome and her breathing so familiar it could have been his own. She shifted, curled a hand against the nape of his neck and his entire body shivered at her touch.

He was cold — so impossibly cold, yet his skin was unbearably warm.

 _What is she doing here?_ he thought with such disgust and fear it almost choked the breath out of him. He managed to scramble out of the covers and walked a few steps away from the bed, from her sister who should _not_ be sleeping next to him like it was _normal_ , like it was a thing they did anymore —

Except it was.

They’d _always_ done this.

He shook his head, walked out of the weirdly unfamiliar bedroom — _it’s your_ house _, wake up, everything is perfectly fine and normal —_ , down the stairs to the kitchen where he drank cold water out of the faucet, letting it slip down his neck and finally passing his head under the stream, letting the cold shake him out of this strange state of uncertainty.

It was all fine, everything was fine — but why did he feel so misplaced, as if the dream had followed him out of bed, as if tensions and trauma and phantom limbs seemed to bear their weight on his reality when everything was fine, everything was as it had been the day before?

He fell on the couch, and already, that was a relief — away from his sister, from his sweet lover — _murderer_ — no, her soulmate, her everything, he just needed to rest, everything would go back to the way it was in the morning.

Yet, it didn’t.

* * *

Brienne was used to nightmares — she had to, had to compartmentalise her night terrors from her day to day life for the sake of her own mental health.

Cat was purring contentedly at the end of the bed. She could hear the kitchen clock ticking by the seconds. She forced herself to exhale slowly, led by its rhythm, repeated to herself her old mantra so as to slowly come back to her senses, recover a sort of control over her frozen limbs. The heater must have shut down once more during the night.

Yet it wasn’t just the cold. It was an uneasy feeling of urgency, a type of fear she was sadly too accustomed to but hadn’t had the misfortune of feeling so vividly in years. Her panic attacks and night terrors had merely been a nauseating mimicry of what had transpired during the accident. She felt as though she was back to that time — or maybe worse, but there was no danger here: nothing but the soft humming of her old refrigerator and the tantalising ticking of the clock, her studio slowly awaking from the night as the greyish light of the rising sun shone over her furniture through the broken blinds of her dusty windows.

She felt like running for her life — and she did just so: jolted out of bed, grabbed her running shoes, wallet and phone, put on an old sweater, left Cat a little something to nibble on in her absence and went off to run through the streets of the waking neighbourhood.

Her feet took the direction of the parc as she distractedly scrolled through the activity of her phone, past notifications, breaking-news alerts and her schedule of eternal business appointments. Margaery wanted to meet for breakfast, and she wrote back to her at the red light while stretching her legs for the impending sprint. She felt better already as her blood flowed happily through her body: she was facing her fear and need of escape with exercise.

The light turned green; she slipped her phone back into her fanny bag and sprinted towards the opposite sidewalk, only to let out a loud scream as a shiny sports car came to a sudden stop a few centimetres away from her. It had came out of nowhere, she could have _sworn_ it.

She stood with her eyes bulging, fear prickling coldly through her body and she lunged at the car aggressively. “Arsehole!” she roared, glaring at the smug blonde man at the wheel.

He lowered his window and passed his own exasperated face through to yell at her. “Fucking look where you’re going, _wench_!”

“It’s fucking _green!_ ”

His eyes were green and stood in strange contrast with the gold of his hair — he was exquisitely handsome, and that only made Brienne angrier. There was a hint of recognition in his expression, something unsettling, almost as much as his eyes were, and she let out a soft gasp before he composed himself and blurted:

“Didn’t they teach you at school to look both ways?!”

She wanted to punch him; she really did, she was just about to, her strange morning anxiety almost getting the best of her — but the man must have seen something in her expression, in her eyes, in the way her body leaned dangerously towards him because his anger wavered, almost as if he were worried. He shut the window, yet not before spitting out a disdainful “You beast!”. He drove off with a roaring of the engines, moved past her almost dangerously and all Brienne could do was stare and gape at the absolute insolence of the man.

She came back to her senses and sprinted towards the parc; she ran for an hour, letting the rays of the sun caress her face as she pushed her limits, purified her body of unwelcome terrors and lingering feelings of urgency.

When she sprang out of the shower, she felt a little better, although she still couldn’t entirely shake the uneasiness that had sneaked into her mind during the night. She felt as though she were forgetting something important, something she really ought to focus on. But here she was: back from the Red Waste, articles and stories in hand about to be spilled out into the public and nothing planned for another two months if no other opportunity presented itself. There was nothing left to do if not keep up the interviews and finally start writing.

Margaery was waiting for her at the corner of the street and Brienne managed to make herself a bit presentable for her first outing in a few months — a blue shirt and black slim jeans, her hair in a strict ponytail, and as she looked at her reflection one last time before leaving the house, she’d never felt less like herself than at that very second.

It was a weird day — nothing more than that, and she’d forget all about the cold and the fear after a few minutes spent in the company of her friend.

“You look like shit,” was all Margaery had to say when she sat next to her, all jumping knees and unbidden anxiety.

“I had a shit night,” Brienne replied, then rolled her eyes at the lascivious smile that sprung up on Margaery’s face.

“As in, a shit date?” Margaery wiggled her eyebrows and Brienne couldn’t help a startled chuckle.

“As in a shit night of _sleep_. I woke up feeling weird.”

Margaery shrugged. “Happens to the best of us.” And still, she gave her _that_ look, that worried look all of her friends couldn’t always hide, a permanent reminder of the accident and Brienne’s state following it, as if they were all ready to see her fall back into depression at any given time.

Brienne tried to ignore it, tried to savour the food and the quality of the discussion, catching up on everything she’d missed since her departure.

“Grandma’s all caught up with the Fashion Week and Loras’s preparing for a new gig,” Margaery was explaining in between two sips of her mimosa. “I barely see them anymore, and Jeoffrey’s been an absolute _shit_.”

“I have no idea why you keep up with him,” Brienne said, exasperated. “I haven’t heard you say anything nice about him _ever_. Not once.”

The gleam in Margaery’s eyes didn’t sit well in her stomach. Money, and power, of course. “It’s all about the prenup,” Margaery explained.

“You deserve better.”

“Oh no, love. _This_ is exactly what I deserve.” And Brienne winced at that — the double entendre, Margaery’s self loathing and ambitions all mingled into one sentence. “Now, tell me all about your life as a desert woman. Did you ride any elephants?”

Brienne laughed. “No, only camels.”

“ _Boring_.”

“I don’t think my skin will ever recover from that trip.”

Margaery hummed noncommittally, her eyes skimming through Brienne’s face — she flushed a little bit, aware that the new expanse of freckles on her sun damaged skin would only be more obvious as it furiously tinted red.

“I’ll take you to the spa.”

“There’s no need.”

“We’ll grab Sansa, have a blast of a time. A girl’s outing — it’s been ages since we’ve taken the time to reconnect.”

Brienne sighed, then shrugged. “Fine, but I don’t want anything silly or unnecessary to be forced on me.” _I don’t want to make a fool of myself,_ she thought but kept herself from saying— it would only prompt Margaery to blurt out a succession of lies and well-meaning reassurances that would be an embarrassment to them both.

“Have you heard from Sansa?” Margaery asked, cutting her pastries into neat little squares before popping them gracefully into her mouth.

“No, I mean… nothing more than the usual memes.”

“It’s been a week since I’ve managed to get a hold of her. I’ve heard things, but…”

“What things?”

Margaery shrugged, although there was a hint of concern in her eyes. “Family problems. Grandma’ doesn’t know much, but the Starks have been fucking up with the Northern Embassy.”

Brienne frowned, opening her mouth to ask Margaery to elaborate, but her phone suddenly lit up with a notification — a message from Pod, enquiring about her smoothie.

“He’d such a sweet lad,” Margaery, squinting at the phone upside down.

“I don’t know why he insists on serving me a damned smoothie every single day,” Brienne retorted, emphasising her annoyance heavily on the last three words.

“He looks up to you.”

“He shouldn’t. It’ll only bring him trouble. He should stick to political coverage. It’s safer.”

“Aw, look at you, being all protective of your charge. It’s almost as if you _care_.”

She did, she cared for the kid very much, even though he could be extremely annoying at times. She quickly typed an answer — _I already ate, thanks._ “At least he’s good with Cat.”

Margaery snorted. “There’s not a lot of people you can say that about. That animal is a _beast_.”

Brienne winced, her morning encounter with the angry blonde driver and his spitting _beast_ at her face too fresh in her memory. “Cat is lovely. You’re just a disgusting dog person.”

Margaery let out an dramatic gasp, playing an affronted hand against her heart. “I’ll let you know that I’m very good friends with Tommen’s kittens, and I have a very particular and deep bond with Ser Pounce.”

Brienne rolled her eyes. “And yet, you still couldn’t take the time to develop a relationship with Cat. I am wounded, truly.”

“Cat can’t stand me.”

“I guess your feet are just _that_ delicious.”

Margaery wiggled her eyebrows cornily and Brienne stole the remaining of her croissant. She’d almost forgotten all about the cold.

* * *

Pod was waiting for her outside the lift, the smoothie she’d definitely asked not to be made in hand and a lPad clutched to his chest. He looked utterly focused and professional, if not a bit weary and stressed. Brienne rolled her eyes at him and grabbed her drink. He’d gone a long way since his first days in the office, barely able to look her in the eyes and spluttering whenever she’d asked him to speak up.

The _Westerosian_ offices were cramped and bustling with activity, phone calls ringing from what seemed to be every desk and people yelling at each other over piles of articles and scribbled notes. The ceilings were low and the neon lights gave off an surreal impression to the scene. Brienne always felt like she was too much, too tall in this place, and it was all she could do not to slouch and recoil in some corner of the office. She knew she’d more than earned her place, yet startled and pitying looks would still be sent her way, either at her mannish silhouette, her towering over most people with her _glorious_ height, her plain face, her braces, her absurdly freckled skin or even the angry red scar on her cheek.

Yet Pod never looked at her like that — mostly, the looks he’d throw her way were full of an awe that made her slightly uncomfortable, as if he somehow idolised her. She couldn’t understand it, but at least the nineteen year old made his job effectively and she didn’t have much to complain about.

“Mr. Clegane is in your office,” he told her, trailing messily behind her as she crossed the entrance desks towards her cramped little room where she could already see her colleague pacing around. “He’s not… he’s very —”

“Hangover,” Brienne finished for him, lips pursed in resignation as she opened her door to look severely at Sandor.

“Tarth,” he grunted politely — Brienne appreciated the effort.

“Clegane”, she replied, stepping to the side to let Pod come into the room. “It is nice to see you again,” she added, because it had indeed been a few months since she’d had the pleasure of his gloomy company.

“You look like shit,” he said matter-of-factly, and Brienne glared at him.

“It’s the sun, it does _wonders_ to my complexion.”

Sandor scoffed. “I can see that.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked, circling her oddly clean desk to sit in her very own battered leather chair. It was sticky and uncomfortable and it cringed as it welcomed her weight.

“I’m afraid the Baratheon cunt is fucking with our schedules again,” he replied colourfully. “You’ve got those shit desert papers to finish up, don’t you?”

“Indeed.” She didn’t matter emphasising the sheer amount of work these said _shit papers_ were. Sandor already knew. He had his own coverage of the Free Republics of Sothoryos to finish up — had had to for almost a year. The subject was becoming stale. “I was planning on getting them done by the end of the month.”

“Well, fuck to that. You’ve heard of the Starks?”

Brienne nodded. “One of my best friends is a Stark. What of them?”

Sandor growled. “Fucking dynasties, they’re _everywhere_. Baratheon apparently has some sort of connexion with them — has to do with his dead cunt brother, you know, him being friends of the old patriarch or something. You’ve heard of the lost expedition of the bird fanatics? The one with the cripple?”

“I — I believe I have,” Brienne replied with a frown. She’d read about it in the morning as she scrolled down the daily news in between two stretches. “They didn’t say much about it — it was mainly anecdotic.”

“ _That’s_ what bothering the Starks. That one cunt lady, that is — whatsherface.”

“Catelyn Stark?” Brienne had never met the woman, yet she’d heard much about her through Sansa.

“Yes. The crippled lad is her son. She thinks the lack of coverage is suspicious — she believes if we start asking around it might force them cops or whatever to actually look for them properly.”

Brienne winced. _Poor Sansa_. She had to call her as soon as possible.

“They’re already probably dead.”

Sandor shrugged. “I guess she doesn’t fucking care.”

Brienne acquiesced — the woman probably just wanted to _know_ what had happened to her son. She sighed and turned to look at her computer, pressing the spacebar to see the screen open on her colourful schedule. “I see that we already have a meeting set up with her tomorrow,” she added, pressing her rough fingertips against her temples and massaging it uselessly.

“You seem pretty calm; I’d expected you to be a bit more — dunno, pissed.”

“What do you mean? It’s just investigative work.”

Sandor laughed — it was more of a roar, really, all sarcastic and dry and devoid of warmth. He finally looked at Pod who was quietly cringing in the corner and let out a deep, frustrated sigh.

“Tarth,” he finally said, slowly, as if she were an infant. “You know they mean us to go North at some point, right? The _North_ North. Baratheon isn’t one for half-assed jobs.”

Brienne blinked once, then a second time, and when finally the implications made their way to her thick brain, she groaned. “Oh for _fuck’s_ sake.”

* * *

It’s not that she’d forgotten about the appointment — she never really did, she’d just somehow convinced herself that today wasn’t the day. Yet, her dread and utter dislike of Dr. Walder Frey made it almost impossible to truly shake off the knowledge of the days separating her from his terrible clinique. Even lost in the Red Waste, where water was a rare commodity and her hygiene had been somewhat left aside, she’d frantically washed her teeth day and night as if her life depended on it. But she knew it wasn’t enough — she’d dislocated yet another bracket while biting inappropriately on a fork and in the months it had taken for her to come back to Westeros, yet another tooth was irreparably crooked.

She’d been going to his clinique for more than a decade; the utter shame brought on by the length of her treatment was but a mere detail when compared with the absolute fear the man inspired in her. He was old — way too old to still be practising, white eyebrows so long they’d constantly tangle with his eyelashes and he bore a perpetual frown that had fuelled her childhood nightmares (and to be perfectly honest, she’d still dream now, as a perfectly rational adult, of his tortures from time to time). He was mean spirited and Brienne could not remember a single appointment he’d not been acutely cruel regarding her appearance and/or the uncooperativeness of her damned teeth.

She’d been sent off to King’s Landing following the death of her mother. She’d been merely twelve and felt utterly abandoned in the capitol. It hurt to think back to her boarding-school days, where girls had found in her the perfect victim and destroyed every last bit of confidence she’d ever had. She’d soon learned she was the ugliest girl alive and had begged her father for braces — her nose was already broken and there wasn’t much she could have done about her freckles. At least, there was something she could do about her teeth.

Her father was already spending most of his savings on her education and it had taken her a whole year to plead her cause — and finally, _finally_ , she’d had her braces and Dr. Frey had been so cruel she’d cried as he applied the dreaded metal pieces to her teeth. The ensuing pain had been unbearable; she hadn’t been able to eat anything but soup for a week. Frey’d had the wonderful idea of giving her yellow elastics, and for two months, it looked as though she never brushed her teeth. It had been a terrible shock to discover the braces only made her uglier. She didn’t know it was even possible. She’d learned to keep herself from smiling, or at least to hide it behind her hands on the rare occasions she couldn’t help it from growing on her ungrateful face.

She was now twenty-six, and her braces were nowhere near done rearranging her teeth. The clinique staff knew her well — the girls were all somehow related to the old doctor, and relatively kind. Brienne couldn’t help thinking the whole ordeal a bit creepy; Frey was, at times (if not _most_ times), way too familiar with the female staff.

She entered the old building at precisely 4:40 and presented herself at the reception, her blood already recoiling in anticipation of the torture she was about to be subjected to. Walda was on duty this time and smiled as she saw Brienne’s imposing stature looming over the desk.

“Brienne!” she said, smiling with impeccable teeth. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Brienne shrugged uncomfortable, definitely aware of the silent reproach in Walda’s seemingly innocent comment. “Work — you know how it is.”

Walda nodded, eyes set on the screen of the clinique’s brand new and imposing lMacs. “How are you doing?” she asked politely.

“Fine, and you?”

Walda only hummed, already distracted by the task at hand and nodded towards the waiting room. “The doctor will see you in a few minutes.” The doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of another patient, and Brienne walked carefully into the next room as a blonde man and his pre-teen daughter came into the clinique.

She was surrounded by teenagers and there was no escaping the startled looks thrown her way. She was too old to be here. The only magazines available were children’s comics from fifty years ago and Brienne got her favorite one from the pile, doing her best to ignore her surroundings. Soon after, the blonde man came in with his girl and took the seats opposite to hers. Almost immediately, Brienne could feel her skin flushing as her forehead tingled under the gaze of the man. She endured it for a few minutes, turning the pages absentmindedly, unable to focus on the familiar characters, until finally, she glanced up and glared at the man.

Her throat constricted — it was the man who’d almost killed her this morning, the blonde arsehole she’d all but assaulted in the middle of the road. He was smirking, infuriatingly handsome in his tailored suit and tousled golden hair, and checking her up with insolence.

It was all Brienne could do not to combust of indignation and rage. She knew her skin had turned a deep, unflattering red, and — gods help her—, there was nothing she could do to prevent it. Her anxiety was spiking up, leaving a trail of cold in its wake, the very same uneasiness that had shaken her out of sleep mere minutes before the alarm in her phone.

He nodded sharply in recognition, his lips twisted in a lopsided smile. “Wench,” he breathed as a greeting, barely making any sound — she doubted anyone but her had heard him — but it was enough to rise all possible kinds of alarms in Brienne’s mind as an avalanche of feelings and glimpses of déjà vu she could not possibly make sense of flooded through her nerves.

“Miss Tarth?” she heard Walda calling out from the entrance of the waiting room, and Brienne rouse up with all the dignity she could muster, chin high and shoulders squared. She felt humiliated and weary and anxious and she _loathed_ the man — it was already enough to worry about her imminent confrontation with Dr Frey and now, she was being _bullied_ by an absolute stranger who felt so familiar it was almost uncomfortable. All she wanted was to crawl back into her bed and forget about her stupid day as Cat purred and drooled on her lap.

She followed Walda into the familiar room, wiping her sweaty palms against her jeans and trying to get her breathing under control. Dr. Frey was washing his hands as she walked in. She eyed the dreaded chair with absolute contempt and managed to stretch her lips in a pitiful attempt at a smile as the horrible man turned to face her.

“Miss Tarth,” he drawled, walking towards her with a stretched hand; Brienne shook it very briefly. “We haven’t seen you in a _long_ time.”

“I was out of the country,” she replied, avoiding his eyes as politely as she possibly could.

“Off on another adventure, is it?” he said, nodding towards the chair on the right. “Please, take a seat.”

She did as she was told, already switching off her brain so as to disassociate from the impending torture.

“You’ve dislocated another bracket, I believe?”

Brienne nodded, then saw that his back was turned on her as he prepared his material. “Yes.”

“And you haven’t called us to let us know — two months ago, was it?”

“I was in Essos,” she replied bitterly. “I couldn’t just _leave_.”

“Of course you couldn’t. How did it happen, this time?”

Brienne smirked. “Fist fight.”

Another one of Frey’s nieces — Derwa? Warga? they all looked so similar — turned a startled look at her. Brienne sighed. “I bit on a fork. Accidentally. My bad.”

Frey turned around as his assistant came to place all tools on a metal tray next to her head.

“How many times is it now? Twenty? Thirty?”

“Twenty-four,” the nameless assistant replied, not without an edge of mockery to her voice.

“Twenty-four,” Frey parroted, and if Brienne’s heart hadn't been in her throat she would have replied something _good_ she couldn’t think of at this precise moment, but she knew it would have (eventually) shut him up once and for all.

She opened her mouth at Frey’s command and endured his sly commentary on the advancement of their _project_. Her central incisors were still too far apart and slightly crooked thanks to the bracket she’d mistreated and that’d been pushing her teeth sideways unmonitored for a couple of months. Her incisors were still recovering from her last mistreatment and Brienne didn’t believe they could ever get properly straight — not in this lifetime, anyway. Her canines had finally dropped but still looked oddly out of place, yet Frey believed he could make something out of her teeth if only she’d be more careful and responsible — and if he gave her a few more years of work.

A few more _years._

The thought almost stopped her heart. She couldn’t — she couldn’t possibly stand these monstrosities this long. She’d hoped they could settle on the little progress they’d made by the end of the year.

The assistant started filling the sides of her mouth with cotton and slipped the saliva ejector against the inside of her cheek. It pressed aggressively against her gums but she didn’t dare letting them know; she didn’t want Dr. Frey to accuse her once more of being an over-sensitive, dainty little brat.

Frey worked on her mouth, slipping out each elastic tires with little regard to her comfort and started working on sticking the loose bracket to her tooth.

“Thirty minutes,” he said after a few minutes, taking off his gloves and glaring at her with a nightmarish frown of his terrible eyebrows. “Until it sticks. Do not _move._ ”

And then, they both left the room. A clock she couldn’t see ticked noisily and the saliva ejector was almost a torture. She didn’t dare moving it around in the case Frey would notice or — gods _help_ her — mess up the placement of the fresh bracket.

After what felt like an eternity, she heard steps walking back into the room.

“… keep her company?”

“Of course, sir. This way—”

She was cursed — utterly, irremediably cursed. The blonde arsehole and his daughter came into the room, the former looking absolutely bored while the latter stared worriedly at the expense of orthodontic tools presented on the table. Brienne caught her gaze and saw her widen her eyes — Brienne could not have been a pretty sight, with her mouth stretched to the side and her glorious insides exposed for the world to see. It couldn’t possibly reassure the little one — and of course, only bring hilarity to her father who couldn’t hide a chuckle once he finally noticed her sitting patiently on the other side of the room.

She glared at him as dignifiedly as she possibly could in her present state.

“Please, Miss Baratheon, do take a seat.” Frey all but curtsied at the little girl as he indicated the free chair a few meters away from Brienne’s.

Brienne turned her head at the name, eyes widening as she took in the appearance of the teenage girl. She was the strict copy of the blonde arsehole — all green eyes, delicate traits and golden curls. She was a Baratheon, yet she couldn’t be Stannis’ daughter; Brienne had seen the little Shireen several times at the office, chattering away with her father’s closest associates. This one Miss Baratheon was not the Shireen she remembered, if only because she didn’t bear the scars of Greyscale on her face.

Something clicked in Brienne’s brain — this was their former Prime Minister’s daughter, Myrcella Baratheon. And judging by her resemblance to the man, he could only be—

Oh gods. She’d yelled at, insulted and antagonised Jaime _fucking_ Lannister, heir of the multinational enterprise Lannister Inc., that all but held the entirety of the digital industry in the palm of their golden fucking hands — and uncle to Myrcella Baratheon, the real life princess of the Six _fucking_ United Republics.

She almost choked on the little amount of spit that remained in her mouth.

Jaime Lannister was looking her in the eyes and there was a little glint there that indicated he knew Brienne had made the connexion in her head. He looked way too smug for his own good. Frey left the room and came back with an additional foldable chair which he obsequiously presented to the man before rushing back to his metallic trail of torture devices.

Myrcella whispered something to her uncle, who teasingly replied something she didn’t care to hear. She wanted to leave, had never been more _mortified_ in her entire life than she was now with her face stretched in the most demeaning way. Her heart thrummed against her throat and she was all but suffocating, forcing her brain to shut off, to ignore the presence of a man she’d no reason to get herself in such a state for. Yet she could hear his voice on repeat in his head — _You beast!_ —, over and over again, and the cold was thickening in her veins once more.

She couldn’t panic now — Frey would never let her live it down. She breathed through her nose slowly, trying to restrain the intake of oxygen to trick her brain into rationality and her usual placid thoughts. This situation required nowhere near the amount of anxiety she was currently under: it was merely an awkward encounter she’d laugh off with her friends in the evening.

Myrcella left the room, followed by Frey and his assistant, and she could feel Jaime Lannister’s gaze burning her skin. She pointedly refused to acknowledge his presence.

“Brienne Tarth,” he finally said after long silent minutes of his gaze unashamedly trailing over her body.

This time, Brienne did choke on her own spit. Jaime Lannister’s laughter followed her rasping for air as she grabbed her throat pitifully.

She wanted the ground to swallow her whole — and _die_.

“Big fan of your work,” he added once she managed a relatively reasonable intake of hair. “That piece on the money laundering scheme of the Summer Isles? Fascinating. I just can’t _wait_ for your next issue.”

Brienne glared at him.

“I don’t believe we’ve started off on the greatest of terms. I’m Jaime Lannister.”

She glared some more.

"But you already knew; a prime journalist like yourself would be entirely capable of tracing the Baratheon name to the Lannister’s trademark golden mane.”

Brienne shrugged.

“You _did_! I am flattered, really. How does it feel like, knowing you’ve almost punched the son of Tywin Lannister in the face?”

Brienne’s glare had turned into something else entirely, something that made Jaime Lannister’s smirk waver slightly on his lips.

“I do apologise for our encounter this morning, wench. But you were _not_ paying attention to the road. I could’ve killed you, you know.”

Brienne gargled indignantly.

“Such refinement, really,” he chuckled. “Although it doesn’t come as a surprise when one takes a single look at you.” She knew her flush and the tears prickling at the corner of her eyes were only making her the more pitiful. She’d suddenly forgotten all about her fear of Dr. Frey as she was just about to pull out all bits and bobs stuck into her mouth so as to finally introduce her fist to his stupidly handsome and cruel grin.

But Myrcella, Dr. Frey and his assistant finally came back to the room and she was stopped in her movement just as her right hand went for the spit sucker.

Jaime was smiling triumphantly and Brienne was shocked at the fact that she’d never loathed anyone as much as she did this man. Frey’s niece came back to sit by her side, her face hidden behind a paper mask, and finally started working on her mouth. Brienne welcomed her body shielding her from Jaime Lannister’s attention and closed her eyes, cringing as she felt one lonely tear rolling down her temple to find shelter in the crook of her ear. Thankfully, it had fallen on her left, where it could escape the assistant’s attention.

“But… can I have the— the pink things? Around the brackets. If —if it’s alright with you, sir,” Myrcella was asking, her voice pure innocence, transpiring with shyness and stress. Frey all but scrambled to his drawers and pulled out his massive collection of elastic wires, showing them off to the blonde pair.

He then proceeded to expose the whole process of the treatment, his tone all deference and cajolery — nothing at all like the treatment he’d imposed on Brienne’s person. She wanted to leave, to put as much distance between the clinique, its hateful protagonists and her. Frey’s niece slipped the metal wire into the brackets, turned back to the drawers to arm herself with additional supplies and finally started securing the movement of her teeth with elastics. It was all a matter of minutes but to Brienne, it felt like hours of poking and pulling and foreboding tension on her teeth that she knew would turn into a week of sore gums and dieting on soup.

Frey took a look at the final result, muttered something unpleasant Brienne erased immediately from her mind and finally rouse up from the torture chair. Myrcella was already subjected to the deformation of her dentition, mouth secured open with white pieces of plastic as tools and wires dangled from her lips. Jaime Lannister was teasing her current appearance with a tenderness she’d not expected to find in such a man, and the girl gave her a look of absolute dread. All Brienne could do was to smile at her encouragingly — she was a good girl with a noble upbringing, she’d only have to endure it for a couple of years. Her teeth were already in good condition. Jaime Lannister shot her a surprised look, and Brienne cautiously averted her eyes as she bent to recover her bag left by the entrance of the room.

“We’ll see you in six weeks,” Frey said without lifting his attention from Myrcella’s teeth. “Hopefully. Try not to damage my work in the meantime — although I doubt you could prevent it if you keep engaging in street fights.”

Brienne didn’t answer, her tongue curling against the new installations on her teeth. Her mouth felt too dry, the taste of Frey’s tools still lingering on her taste buds. She gave the doctor and his assistant a dry nod and turned to leave this godsforsaken place. Jaime Lannister’s eyes found hers as she turned, and his lips curled into a hateful smirk.

“Miss Tarth,” he said, her name sounding strange in his mouth, as if he was trying it out and tasting the way it curled against his stupid, perfect teeth.

Brienne eyed him up and down with disgust. “Lannister,” she spit out, and finally left the building.

She took the elevator, even if the clinique stood on the second floor. She pursed her lips at the mirror so as to take a look at Frey’s work, and her stomach dropped to her feet.

They’d adorned her brackets with pink elastics.  

And Brienne decided, here and there, that she would never come back, even if it meant she’d keep her braces her entire life.

* * *

“Did you know her?” Myrcella asked some time later, as he treated his niece to a milkshake in a nearby coffee shop as a reward for her courage.

Her words sounded strange — almost slurring on the fricatives, as if her brand new braces impeded her speech. Cersei wouldn’t like it.

“Who?”

“The blonde woman, at doctor Frey’s.”

Cold flooded through his veins for what felt like the hundredth time that day. That damned _beast_ , whose presence seemed to prickle his skin with every single one of her heated glares.  

“That’s Brienne Tarth,” he replied, trying his best to sound as carefree as he usually did. “Do you remember that documentary on West2, a few months ago? The one about the flowery silks?”

“Oh, yes, I do,” Myrcella nodded enthusiastically — she _loved_ documentaries of all sorts, more than movies or any of those TV shows girls her age usually swore by. “The one about the fake money?”

“Exactly,” Jaime said, crossing his arms on his chest as he leaned back on his chair. “That’s all hers. The _legendary_ Brienne Tarth.”

Myrcella’s eyes widened. “She’s _the_ tall woman? Oh gods, and I didn’t even get to properly say hi!” She blushed, hands covering her mouth in horror as she came to some sort of realisation. “Oh _gods_ , she saw me like that — looking all _ugly_ and _dumb_ and _oh no,_ she’s _never_ going to like me, is she? She’ll think I’m _stupid!_ If she ever thinks of me again she’ll only remember how _ugly_ I looked!”

And Jaime laughed at that — laughed more than he should have. He could still picture the absurdly tall woman stretched out on the grey chair, her strange face distorted with all sorts of instruments hanging out of her stupidly large mouth. She’d glared at him with utter hatred and even in this situation, even given how ridiculous she looked, he’d been startled by the intense blue of her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he managed to blurt out once he’d somehow gone past his hilarity, “she’s probably worrying about how ugly _she_ looked.”

“Uncle Jaime,” she said, the J of his name hissing strangely from the new implements on her teeth. She looked reproachful. “That’s mean.”

Jaime shrugged, ignoring the slight pang of guilt her words had brought on. He didn’t care — he _shouldn’t_ care. He didn’t care about anything.

“Do you know her, then?”

Jaime blinked at her. “Brienne Tarth? I— I guess so. I almost ran her over with my car this morning, but—”

He didn’t know how to explain it — how to explain the uncharacteristic cold dread her presence seemed to provoke, or even how familiar she’d felt when he was absolutely sure they’d never met before. “I think — I think we might know each other. From somewhere. I don’t really know.”

Myrcella frowned as she slurped noisily the rest of her drink. “A mystery!” she whispered excitedly, and yes, Cersei would definitely not be pleased at Myrcella’s brand new lisp.

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied, almost defensively. Myrcella only hummed and her eyes trailed over the busy street, unfocused; Jaime could see her tongue curling around the strange new metallic brackets adorning her once lovely teeth.

“Dr. Frey was mean to her.”

Jaime followed her gaze, his focus lost on the multitude of people roaming the sideway, until it stopped on Brienne _fucking_ Tarth coming out of a nearby shop as she all but yelled at her lPhone.

“He was, wasn’t he?” he murmured, doing his best to ignore how cold he suddenly felt, trying to somehow _guess_ where this strange sense of familiarity came from, why he’d suddenly started itching all over at the prospect of his current life when he’d woken up in a fit of fear that very night — tried to understand why he found this lumbering beast of a woman so _fascinating_ when their two encounters had been anything but.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and I am very curious as to know what you've picked up from the little hints I've scattered through this chapter? Please let me know, and don't hesitate to live a comment, I live for those things <3 
> 
> Thank you so much! The next chapter should be posted by the end of the week.


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